


Midsummer Nightmare

by kimstaticchild



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Claudia - OC - Freeform, DJ - Freeform, Fairies, Fairy, GT, Gen, Magic, Nightclub, Nuckelavee, Robbie - OC, Size Difference, Size Fic, TINY - Freeform, fae, giant, glamour, size!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-27 12:17:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6284203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimstaticchild/pseuds/kimstaticchild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean Winchester investigate a bloody attack on a nightclub, only to find that the entire case is shrouded with older and deeper magic than they were prepared for.</p><p>(Takes place in the Brothers Apart AU - created by nightmares06)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightmares06](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmares06/gifts).



> This is an entry for nightmare06's Brothers Apart 2016 Contest. Info here: http://nightmares06.deviantart.com/journal/Brothers-Apart-Contest-2016-Under-a-month-left-581682488

The air vibrated as if the nightclub was a living, breathing entity.. Some of the clubbers breathlessly grasped at their dance partners. Others threw their heads back in ecstasy. The night was almost over, but no one was ready to stop.

Claudia sat at a booth, catching her breath. She leaned back and politely averted her eyes from the couple crawling all over each other in the seat across from her. It wasn’t an unusual sight in Arcadia. The nightclub ignited more passion in people than any other club Claudia had visited. A kind of passion that kept her coming back for more.

Lights danced on the walls and on the floor, but there never seem to be a source. Same went for the multi-colored smoke clouding the dance floor and catching on everyone’s clothes. No one ever questioned it. No one ever questioned Arcadia. In fact, the few times that Claudia brought up Arcadia outside of the nightclub, she would be given strange looks and halting answers before a change a subject. 

It wasn’t strange, when she really thought about it. The local clubs were notorious for having people pass around acid. The dealers there had to be remarkably discreet, though, since she had never seen any of them.

The music lowered to a less ear-ringing volume. “Ladies and gentleman, last call at the bar. Come on, there’s still time to get a little wilder.” The DJ grinned at the cheers and whoops from the crowd. A few of them broke away from the dance floor. “Hey, come on,” he insisted over the mic. “I don’t want any of you all to come whining to me when Josh turns you away. Get your last drink and get back. We’ll still be here.”

By the time the DJ turned the music back up, the dance floor was half empty, and the bar was crowded.

The DJ scanned past the people on the dance floor and zeroed in on Claudia. His golden eyes could only be work of contacts. His black hair faded into red at the tips and was spiked into a faux hawk. All in all, he wasn’t the most unusual person she had seen since moving to New Jersey, but there was certainly something strange about him.

He quirked his lips in a half smile and raised his drink toward her, displaying one forearm crowded with colorful tattoos that disappeared into the rolled-up sleeve of his black hoodie. She returned the smile and raised her glass back at him. They had only spoken on a few occasions, and she knew his name was Robbie, and that was about it. But it had become a weird sort of tradition between the two of them that he would find her in the regular weekend crowd long enough to make some kind of knowing eye contact. 

She wasn’t sure if he was flirting or what, but he never pursued her.

Figuring she could do with one last drink, Claudia set her empty glass down and started across the dance floor, weaving through the clubbers and shaking her head at those who tried to pull her in. Everyone liked each other there. There were no strangers in Arcadia until they walked out the door.

_Pa-thump, pa-thump, pa-thump._

Claudia slowed and looked at the shut front doors. The sound came from there, but how could she have heard it over the music? The sound didn’t stop. If anything, it pounded louder. She froze halfway across the dance floor and looked around for someone to share a confused expression with, but no one noticed. How could they not hear it?

_Pa-thump, pa-THUMP, PA-THUMP._

The music cut off. Claudia whirled to look at the DJ booth on the stage. Robbie stood there with wide eyes and parted lips, staring at the door even as the weekend crowd protested about being denied their musical elixir. The party lights shut off, replaced with the fluorescents overhead, and the colorful smoke faded into nothing. The DJ stayed rigid as a statue for a second before staggering backward and raising both hands like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

Claudia saw him mouth the word “no” before an ear-splitting screech drowned out the complaints.

No one reacted except Robbie, who went absolutely pale.

She followed his gaze to the door and regretted looking. Her heart felt as though it decided to pump ice instead of blood.

The _thing_ standing in front of the doors didn’t remain in one place for long. It roared again, and charged. Hoofbeats thundered against the ground. As Claudia shrieked and scrambled to clear herself from its path, she got a better look at it than she would have ever wanted to.

Thick layers of red muscle covered its body instead of skin. It was a man an a horse joined together; the man’s waist merged at the horse’s back, its too-long arms sweeping near to the floor as the horse’s head bobbed with its gallop. Both of the monster’s roaring mouths displayed sets of razor-sharp teeth.

The man part of the monster didn’t take its eyes away from the DJ booth. It threw both of its claw-tipped hands out, barrelling through the crowd. Screams exploded into the air. Blood poured onto the smooth wooden floor. People raced for the door in mass panic, only to become the next victims of the claws that they couldn’t even seem to see.

Claudia squeezed her eyes shut and made it to the edge of the dance floor before pain erupted at her side. Hacking out a cry of pain, she sank down and dragged herself beneath the nearest table, clutching the claw marks over her ribs. Breathless sobs flared the pain until she was sure she would pass out. Her spotty vision still allowed her plenty of view to the terror before her. Those at the bar had been lucky enough to be out of the monster’s path and were pushing past each other to escape the building. Others were bleeding and crawling toward the door. Others weren’t moving at all.

But no one would _look_ at the monster.

Peering out as far as she dared, Claudia dug her phone out of her pocket, but her fingers were slick with blood. The monster’s guttural voice came to her over the terrified sounds of the clubbers, but she couldn’t understand the language it spoke in. Robbie stood with his back against the wall, his eyes unmistakably fixed on the monster.

The beast raised one of its long arms over the DJ booth and roared something at the same time that Robbie threw his own hand out and yelled something too.

A flash of blinding light overpowered the fluorescents before faded out just as suddenly. Claudia blinked hard, eyes adjusting.

Robbie was _gone_. Vanished behind the booth.

As for the beast, it shrieked and reared back on its hind legs, fading like the glow of headlights on a distant car. In a matter of moments, the monster disappeared completely with only the sobs and blood of the writhing victims left as a sign that it had been there at all. Claudia’s head dropped, but she raised it back up, forcing herself to focus while everything else in her wanted to slip away.

She dialed with shaking fingers and laid on her good side, holding the phone up to her ear.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

* * *

“You sure this is the right place?”

“Arcadia,” Dean read from the cursive sign above the door. “That’s the name that the paper gave us.”

Sam frowned at the almost-empty street through the windshield and the back window from Dean’s shoulder. Dean had no trouble parallel parking right in front of the nightclub doors. “You’re _sure_?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, Sammy, I’m _sure_ ,” Dean said, his voice at a near growl from his exasperation.

Refusing to show Dean the intimidation that threatened to surface, Sam kept his voice even. “Don’t you find it weird that people died here last night and this place isn’t crawling with cops? Doesn’t even look like it’s marked as a crime scene.” Sam peered through the far-side passenger window, keeping a constant eye out for pedestrians. “Even the cops at the station didn’t sound concerned. Like it’s a normal Sunday. Maybe we should have gone to the hospital so you could talk to some survivors.”

Dean was quiet for a second. “It’s not that weird, when you think about it.”

Sam turned incredulously, but it was impossible to get a good look at Dean’s face from his shoulder. “ _What_ about any of this isn’t weird? That a dozen people dropped dead and another dozen were injured, or that no one seems care that it happened?”

“I mean sure, it’s a little weird,” Dean said, clearly humoring Sam. “But if the cops aren’t worried, why should we be? Sounds to me like they’ve got it under control if they’re not freaking out over this. Probably just some freak plowing people down with a machete. I say we turn around and find ourselves a different gig.”

Struck silent, Sam didn’t speak up until Dean reached to turn the key in the ignition.

“Are you kidding me?” Sam huffed, unsure what to make of Dean’s nonchalance, but certain it had something to do with everyone else acting indifferent as well. “A few minutes ago you couldn’t get to this place fast enough! Come on, we should at least take a look inside.” If there was one advantage to an unfazed police department, it had to be easy access to a crime scene.

Dean groaned and leaned back in the driver’s seat, the rattling movement nearly knocking Sam from his perch. He dropped to a crouch and gripped handfuls of the thick fabric of Dean’s collar. “Sorry,” Dean muttered, though far less apologetic than usual when it came to jostling his little brother by accident. “You sure you want to go in there? Looks like a waste of time to me.”

A pit of worry opened in Sam’s gut. His brother wasn’t acting like himself at all, but Sam himself was unaffected by whatever made Dean act like that. Now they _had_ to get to the bottom of this.

“Do you have an appointment somewhere I don’t know about?” Sam groused, irritation mingling with his concern. “We’ve got time to waste. It won’t hurt to take a look.”

Sam was almost certain that Dean would argue further, but his big brother just sighed and reluctantly gave in. Minutes later, Sam was hidden within the front pocket of Dean’s jacket in case there was anyone inside the nightclub despite its seemingly abandoned exterior. The world juddered and shook as Dean exited the Impala and slammed the door behind him.

Meanwhile, Sam’s heart and mind raced with uncertainties. Dean’s change of behavior happened so _fast_ , and it was terrifying to think about being in reach of a human whose actions weren’t the ones that Sam had gotten used to. He could only hope there would be some answers inside the building. If not, there were always victims Dean could meet with, through Sam wasn’t sure how he could convince his brother to drive to the neighborhood hospital when he had just put up a fuss about walking into a building mere feet away.

The rocking movement of Dean’s gait paused and then resumed. His footsteps changed from a surface of concrete to hardwood. Given how quickly Dean got inside, the door hadn’t even been locked. Stranger and stranger.

* * *

Breathless, Robbie leaned against one leg of the DJ booth, waiting for the human that entered Arcadia to turn around and leave like the others after the bodies, blood, and survivors, had been cleared away. 

The space under the DJ booth didn’t give him enough room to stand, but he wasn’t in the mood for standing anyway. The glamour he cast on Arcadia didn’t leave him in the mood to do much of anything. As if being shrunk down to his natural height wasn’t bad enough, it took a toll on his powers.

_Fucking Nuke._

The night before was by far the most hellish one Robbie had experience in centuries. He always knew that Nuckelavee would come back to get him one day, but not now. Not like this. Robbie though there would be more warning signs, more opportunity to prepare when the time came. He pursed his lips, the memory of the gutted victims all too fresh in his mind. So many familiar faces, either dead or filled with agony because of a monster that had only wanted _him_. Last night’s attack was the closest thing he would get to a warning sign, he supposed.

A deep voice rumbled from somewhere within the club.

“See? Empty.”

Pushing away from the wall beneath the booth, Robbie dared to move closer to the edge and peer out from under the shadows. Beyond the stage, a massive pair of boots strode across the dance floor to the tables. Robbie swallowed hard and looked down to gather himself. What was he doing, being afraid of a human? It was more troubling that the human was still there at all. He should have turned tail the moment he walked through the door, indifferent to the incident of last night.

Unless Robbie’s glamour was dwindling too much to even manage that anymore.

He shook his head. The glamour, even weaker than normal, was still going strong enough to ward away investigators from sticking their noses where they shouldn’t. They wouldn’t comprehend what was going on here if Robbie let them go on like it was a normal investigation. The only thing they could accomplish was getting killed.

The human’s rumbling voice filled the air again.

“What kind of crime scene is this clean anyway?” He sounded like he was arguing with someone, but he was the only one there. “I say this isn’t our type of thing.”

Robbie leaned out further. The human had both hands down at his sides, so he couldn’t be holding a cellphone. Too curious to be cautious, Robbie poked his head out from under the DJ booth to get a better look at the human, who stood about twenty feet away by the tables. Intimidation squirmed into his nerves, but Robbie stifled it. Maybe it was the fact that Robbie hadn’t stood from that perspective for a few decades, but this human looked especially _tall_.

“Fine,” the human grumbled, turning his head to face the other line of tables and confirming that he wasn’t wearing a bluetooth in either ear. So he was talking to no one.

_Great_ , Robbie thought with a roll of his eyes. _We got a weirdie, folks._

“If you wanna take a look around, be my guest,” the human went on with a defeated sigh. He turned to the door with an air of caution before holding his hand up to his collar.

“Ah,” Robbie breathed in realization when he saw what the human had in his hand when he pulled it away from his shoulder. It was hard to discern the details from the distance, but it was unmistakably a tiny person. By then, Robbie was leaning out more than halfway from under the booth. His first thought was that Nuckelavee had taken another victim, but that made no sense.

All boasting intended, Robbie was the only person who could enter Nuckelavee’s crosshairs and make it out alive.

Robbie knew there were tiny people out there, living in hiding from humans. This one just wasn’t doing a very good job. All of that aside, Robbie supposed that the glamour didn’t affect the smaller person like it did humans--which would explain why the tall guy was so reluctant. _I still got it, then,_ Robbie thought in relief. But he knew he didn’t have the strength to send a specialized wave of glamour to affect the tiny person.

If it was another fae, then the whole situation was royally screwed. Chances were, Nuckelavee put a bounty on Robbie’s ass the moment the beast had come back to life.

The human shook the floor as he moved across to the other tables, the expression on his face making it clear that he’d rather be anywhere else. However, the giant stopped in his tracks suddenly and frowned at his hand.

Robbie’s eyes darted to the tiny person, bristling in alarm when he saw they were facing _him_. A heartbeat later, the human’s enormous gaze whirled to the DJ booth. Robbie felt the glamour spell on the human shatter the moment those large eyes zeroed in on him.

“Fuck,” Robbie uttered, scrambling back for cover.

The ground rattled with earthquake-like tremors. “Yeah, I saw something,” the human said, all lethargy gone from his voice and replaced with baffled determination.

Heart hammering, Robbie forced himself as far into the corner beneath the booth as he could. The shaking reached its peak and then stopped. Robbie wrinkled his nose and clamped a hand over his mouth when a sharp, vile scent filled the air.

_Iron._

The human carried the scent of pure iron somewhere on him, and it took Robbie only a split second to realize it meant this was no simple investigator with a weird tagalong tiny partner.

This was a hunter.


	2. Chapter 2

The moment that Dean spotted the tiny person, something changed. All of his indifference toward the case disappeared so suddenly that he had to pause and gather his thoughts, mind reeling.

“Dean?” A tiny voice came from his shoulder. “You saw that, didn’t you? On the stage?”

“Yeah, I saw something.”

With that, he made a beeline for the DJ booth. Whatever was going on, maybe the tiny person hiding away from him had something to do with it. He couldn’t begin to explain his sudden mood swings of engagement toward the case, but one thing for certain was that looking at the tiny person had snapped him out of it.

“What are you doing?” Sam exclaimed as Dean leaned over the edge of the stage to be nearly at eye level with the bottom of the DJ booth. If he moved down any further, he wasn’t sure if Sam would be able to keep his balance.

“What’s it look like?” Dean glanced at his shoulder, though he couldn’t get a good look at this small brother from there. “You said you saw it too!”

“Then you know what I saw! And you know they’re not gonna come out with you getting up close like this. Let me talk to them.”

“Something’s off here, Sammy,” Dean insisted, narrowing his eyes at the shadows beneath the booth. He couldn’t catch movement, but he stayed on high alert. “I think something about this place messed with my head--hell, it could explain why no one else seems to care about what happened here! You said it yourself. The cops couldn’t care less, and the newspaper treated it like a run-of-the-mill story.”

There was a pause. “And you think whoever’s under there has something to do with it?”

“I started caring about the death again the moment I saw them,” Dean said. “Doesn’t that sound fishy to you?”

“I guess it does,” Sam admitted with a reluctance that Dean understood. The small folk like Sam were always harmless. Suggesting that one of them was up to something even put Dean on edge.

Dean rapped his knuckles on the stage twice. “Listen up,” he announced to the hiding person. “I’m not here to hurt you, got it? Neither of us are. We heard about the deaths here, and we just want some answers. All you need to do is tell us what you know. You can come out.”

As he expected, there wasn’t even a hint of movement.

“Well, whatever messed with your head didn’t affect me,” Sam said. “Maybe I should be the one to talk to them.”

Dean didn’t answer or offer Sam a lift off his shoulder, but he felt his little brother stubbornly begin to climb down the sleeve of his jacket. Dean’s hand braced on the edge of the stage to give Sam a straight path right to the space beneath the booth. Despite all instincts to pull Sam back, Dean forced himself not to move. There was no way he was going to let Sam disappear in the shadows, but he could at least give him a shot at talking to the tiny person.

When he finished climbing down, Sam took a few slow steps toward the booth and came to a stop before Dean could warn him not to go any farther. Stance calm and collected, Sam called out in a friendly voice.

“Hey there. We’re not--”

A dark-haired tiny person bolted out from under the booth, charging for Sam. Dean had fought enough people to know an incoming attack when he saw one. Without a beat of hesitation, he lashed out with the nearest hand and shut it around the tiny person before he could reach Sam.

Dean grimaced. “Gah! What the hell?” He brought his hand closer to his face and uncurled his fingers cautiously, feeling a strange sensation within his grasp. He frowned in disbelief. Having expected to see a terrified or violent borrower, he wasn’t prepared to find a crumpled _leaf_ in his hand instead.

“Dean!”

Half a dozen more borrowers were on the stage--all of them exactly alike with black-and-red hair and dark hoodies. Three of them scattered in different directions, and the other three closed in on Sam. In an instant, Sam had his knife out as one of the clones lunged for him, the other two circling like wolves. The blade plunged into the attacker’s shoulder, and the tiny figure promptly transformed into a twig and clattered to the ground.

Giving up on trying to keep track of the ones that ran off, Dean plucked Sam off the stage and used the back of his other hand to swipe at the two remaining assailants. The moment he made contact with them, they became leaves fluttering in the displaced air.

“There has to be a real one,” Dean growled, turning his head to look for the others that had scattered. A distraction. It had all been a distraction for the real one to get away. He started to stand up to track him down, but Sam’s voice called up from his hand and brought him to a stop.

“Under the booth!” Sam gave Dean a confident look. “Why would he put himself out in the open and give you the chance to grab him? He _wants_ you to get up and leave. So he has to still be under there!”

“Smart,” Dean muttered, glaring at the space beneath the booth. Shifting Sam upward, he waited until his tiny brother was perched on his shoulder again, freeing both of Dean’s hands in case things got messy again.

Bracing himself, Dean threw his free hand under the booth and felt for the farthest corner first.

Sure enough, he heard a tiny string of curses as his fingers brushed someone that didn’t transform into a leaf or twig on contact.

* * *

Robbie knew he was in trouble when the hunter faced his direction rather than turn on the remaining doppelgangers. Fresh panic wracked his senses as he frantically sought another illusion to throw the hunter off, but Robbie was already exhausted from the doppelganger spell, on top of the glamour he’d secured on Arcadia after the attack.

His thoughts came to a screeching halt when a monstrous hand shoved itself under the DJ booth, Robbie lunged away, essentially cornering himself. With only the slightest bit of caution, the fingers brushed the ground before sliding right to Robbie.

“Fuck you!” Robbie snapped. “Back off!”

The pause of realization alsted on half a second. A thumb and forefinger clamped around his leg like the jaws of a snake, but the hunter hesitated, waiting for Robbie to _poof_ into a leaf like the others he had laid his hands on.

Robbie answered the hunter’s question himself by struggling to pry his leg free. The grip tightened--the hunter added another finger to keep his hold on Robbie’s calf and tugged him away from the corner. The abruptness of the movement sent the back of Robbie’s head crashing to the hardwood ground. His vision turned spotty for a second as he was dragged out from under the safety of the shadows.

The next thing he knew, he was blinking in the light, suspended upside-down before the hunter’s huge face. Chest heaving, Robbie tried to move his trapped leg, while the other hung like dead weight. Ignoring the bewildered stare of the hunter and the tiny companion on his shoulder, he gritted his teeth and folded himself halfway up to pry at the fingers of his trapped calf again.

He’d endured far worse in the past, but he was _not_ interested in dying today.

It was astounding that the hunter managed to hold his leg without snapping it. Robbie supposed having a tiny person hang around him had something to do with that.

“You sure you really want to fall from there?”

The rumbling voice made Robbie stop and tilt his head back to meet the hunter’s sharp, intimidating gaze.

_Sharp eyes and sharper knives._

Feeling a spark of fear that did not sit well with Robbie at all, he focused instead on the deadly fall below--the edge of the dance floor was beneath him rather than the shorter fall to the stage--and the hunter wasn’t even _standing_. Gathering himself, Robbie fixed his eyes back on the hunter and chuckled.

“Good point,” he said, injecting levity into his voice. “Mind bringing me a little lower so I don’t kill myself when I get away?”

“We don’t have time for games,” the hunter said. “You were messing with my head--with _everyone’s_ heads, weren’t you? That’s why no one around here seems to give a shit that a bunch of people died in this club.” The hunter’s sharp green eyes narrowed dangerously, make Robbie disregard the instinct to applaud the man sarcastically for figuring out he was the one responsible for the glamour. “You killed those people, didn’t you?”

Robbie couldn’t hold his tongue at that.

“Woah, woah, _wooooah._ Do I look like I’m in any shape to kill a roach, let alone a whole _person_? If I could take out a dozen people and not make anyone care about it, wouldn’t I have killed _you_ by now, smart one?”

The pressure increased on his leg, and Robbie knew he could be one wrong word away from having it shattered. After all, this hunter thought he was dealing with a bloodthirsty killer. Robbie felt his insides go colder. Even if he believed him that the real killer was still out there, the hunter wasn’t too pleased about the glamour. Chances were, Robbie was good as dead no matter what. No magic, no hope.

“Sounds an awful lot like you’re avoiding the question there, pipsqueak,” the hunter growled.

Robbie opened his mouth, but only a groan of pain came out.

“Ease up, Dean,” a small voice piped up. “That’s too much!” The tiny man on Dean’s shoulder leaned out to get a better look at Robbie, appearing concerned. Robbie tried not to get his hopes up; even if they decided he was valuable enough to keep alive for information, there was no guarantee he would be walking away alive afterwards.

_Damn hunters._

“I need to get with the times,” Robbie said with a weak laugh as the pain eased on his leg. The hunter actually _listened_ to the tiny man. “Didn’t know hunters were keeping mascots these days.”

In the blink of an eye, Robbie landed on his back with the world rightside-up again. Before he had time to get his bearing, the leathery surfaced beneath him closed in, sealing his arms against his sides and trapping him with only his head and shoulders free. His whole body was encased in pressure rather than just his leg.

“Sorry, what was that?” the hunter said, raising his eyebrows.

Robbie had only enough breath in him to focus on not suffocating, so he held off on the comebacks for the time being. As the pain grew in his chest, he wondered for how many years it would take him to come back to life after being crushed to death in a giant fist.

“Dean, seriously?” The small man came to Robbie’s rescue again. “How do you expect to get anything out of him if he can’t even _talk_? If he had a way to attack us, he would have done it by now, wouldn’t he?”

“We don’t even know what the hell he is, Sam,” Dean said, but he finally loosened his grip.

Robbie swallowed a deep breath. He glared at the hunter, who glared right back. Out of the corner of his eye, Robbie could see Sam looking on from Dean’s shoulder, cautious but curious. He may have put a stop to the hunter squeezing him to death right then and there, but how long would that last?

But even if they did kill him in the end… the least he could do was make sure that _someone_ was out there trying to get rid of Nuckelavee. These two wouldn’t last a second against that beast, but it was worth a shot.

“I’m a fae, and I did cast a spell on this place, but I’m not the murderer,” Robbie said, trying his luck at getting a little more leeway within the thick fingers. “Instead of testing how much pressure my ribs can take before snapping, how ‘bout you let me tell you what did kill those people last night? And then you can continue on your merry hunt.”

There was a fair amount of consideration in Dean’s eyes that Robbie didn’t expect to find. Most hunters were the _shoot first, ask questions later_ type. Didn’t meant that it was better to the type to ask questions and shoot _after_.

“What was it, then?” Dean demanded. “And why the hell are you trying to cover it up?” His voice was rife with skepticism, not quite ready to believe that Robbie wasn’t the killer.

“A bunch of human cops trying to go after that thing?” Robbie laughed and shook his head. “The body count would go sky high. ‘That thing’ is called Nuckelavee, by the way. And believe me, you don’t want to go messing with him, either. We fae fear him the way you humans fear demons.”

“Why did he come here, then?” Sam asked, much less skepticism in his tone than his larger companion. “Was he after you?”

Robbie snorted. “That’s a long story.” He looked back at Dean. “Listen up, muscles. I know you’re getting some kind of thrill out of taking down a 4-inch guy here, but the more limbs I have intact by the end of this interrogation, the more likely I’m going to be able to take down old Nuke. I’ve got everything under control, so you can go back to terrorizing little old witches living under highways and leave it to me.”

The hunter’s humorless chuckle rumbled through the fae. “Not happening.” His grip tightened the slightest bit, but not to the same lung-crushing degree as before. “Hang on, Sammy.”

With that, Dean stood up and headed for the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam wasn’t sure what to think. The tiny person holed up under the DJ booth looked like any other person living in the walls of motels and hiding from humans, but there was no denying that this man was unusual.

His hair was dyed, and his hoodie had the metal glint of a zipper on it, scaled to _his_ size as if he was human. Small folk weren’t exactly known for wearing Adidas sneakers, either. But most importantly, the man claimed to be a fairy and even admitted to being the source of the couldn’t-care-less-attitude the people in the area had about the murders.

Before Dean exited the nightclub, Sam ducked beneath his collar to stay out of sight. A strange situation was no reason to become careless. If anything, they needed to be even more careful than ever.

Once the ear-splitting slam of the car door finished reverberating in the air, Sam cautiously moved out from under Dean’s collar and looked down at his brother’s hand. To his surprise, the fairy wasn’t struggling anymore. In fact, the little guy had his arms folded on top of Dean’s hand, looking up boredly.

“Let me guess,” the fairy said. “You’re gonna stuff my in your pocket now.”

Dean’s shoulder tensed beneath Sam before his voice rumbled. “You know, I don’t think I like the idea of you being out of sight.” 

With that, Dean transferred the fairy into his left hand, trapping one of his arms and leaving him in an even more uncomfortable position than before. Dean started the Impala and lowered his occupied hand to his lap, keeping a firm hold on the stranger.

“Oh right, this is much better,” the fairy said over the roar of the Impala as Dean pulled away from the curb. “Sorry, how do you plan to keep an eye on me when both of your eyes are on the road?”

Dean glared straight ahead. “I suggest you shut it until we’re ready to talk.”

The fairy let out a heavy sigh, but surprisingly didn’t test Dean.

“Listen, Dean,” Sam muttered, trying to keep his voice low so the fairy wouldn’t hear. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere with this guy if we don’t at least give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Benefit of the doubt?” Dean snorted, ruining any attempt at subtlety that Sam had in mind. “I don’t even think it’s safe enough to bring him to the motel! He’s not like you or the others, Sam. He said so himself, he’s a _fairy_.”

“I said _fae_ , not fairy,” the prisoner piped up, though he was ignored.

Dean ignored the comment. “I’m sure there’s plenty of lore backing up why we shouldn’t be giving him the benefit of the doubt. One thing I know, a lot of lore talks about fairies having a weakness of iron.”

The fae groaned. “Here’s a crazy idea: not every Wikipedia article out there applies to _all_ fae. You might want to consider that before you start making assumptions about me.”

“Sounds like there’s something you don’t want us to find,” Dean said grimly.

Planting his elbow on Dean’s thumb, the fae slumped with that bored look on his face again. “ _Several_ things.”

~~~

The overcast sky hid the high-noon sun. Sam reluctantly agreed that taking the fae back to the motel room wouldn’t be the best option, seeing as they could be putting people in danger just by bringing the fae within proximity to them.

Dean’s inkling about iron proved to be correct. Once they were situated in a deserted section of a dumpy park, the fae went pale when Dean pulled out an iron blade twice the fae’s length. He was released on the very corner of a wooden picnic table, with the blade set diagonally to block his path. He made no move to cross it, backing himself right to the edge and glaring at the iron as if it wanted to bite him.

“So,” Dean said, taking a seat at one end of the picnic table once he set Sam down well away from the prisoner. “Start talking.”

The fae laughed with a nervous edge in his tone. “Oh, am I allowed now?”

“You said that not everything out there applies to all fae,” Sam said. He took a few steps toward the corner, stopping when he noticed Dean bristle. Sam didn’t move any closer, not wanting to give his older brother any reason to pull him away and make him lose his train of thought. “So there’s more than one type. What are you?”

“Observant, aren’t you? Well, I’m an Aeonian, to be exact. And the name’s Robbie. _DJ Robbie_.” To Sam’s surprise, he gave a small bow when he said it--not quite mocking, but almost as natural a gesture as waving ‘hello.’

“Didn’t ask for your name,” Dean groused. “What does Aeonian mean?”

“Something along the lines of ‘everlasting,’” Robbie said. 

“ _How_ everlasting?”

Robbie scrunched his face up in thought. “I’ve been alive for… several centuries. Give or take. Probably give.”

Sam’s eyes went wide. Maybe Dean wasn’t so wrong about being extra wary about the guy. “You’re immortal?”

“Yes… And no.”

Dean touched the handle of the blade casually, prompting Robbie to shuffle back until his heels touched the edge of the table. “If you’re gonna be vague, I can move the knife a little closer.”

Robbie’s easy expression hardened. “I can die, but I come back. Always come back. And always at _this_ size, since it’s my natural height. Every time I come back, though, I start building up my strength until I have enough magic to be human-sized. Not very fun to be in a world full of giants, is it?” His eyes slid to Sam briefly. “When Nuckelavee attacked, he stripped away a lot of my magic. Didn’t kill me, but the blow was bad enough to send me back to this damn size.” He gestured up and down at himself disdainfully. “Didn’t get my wings back in the process, either,” he added in a grumble.

Sam shared a look with Dean. Even for them, hearing someone so casually talk about immortality and fae demons was unusual, to say the least.

“Guess that explains why you’re not so scared of being killed as you should be,” Dean said, narrowing his eyes at the fae. “How’s about you start talking about what you were doing in that nightclub?”

Robbie crossed his arms. “ _DJ_ Robbie, remember? I’ve been spinning in Arcadia for a couple years.”

Dean laughed at that, causing Sam to flinch at the booming sound. “You’re kidding, right? What’s a centuries-old fairy doing DJing at a club?”

“I like music,” he said, nonplussed. “Fae get a sort of ecstasy from humans’ emotions, and trust me, there’s plenty of emotion at my nightclub. I’m kinda stuck in the mortal realm for all eternity. Might as well do something I like, right?”

“What do you mean you’re stuck?” Sam asked, unsurprised by the implication that there were other realms out there besides the mortal one.

Robbie looked down and straightened the strings of his hoodie. “Ah, this is where old Nuke comes in. You see, I used to be a servant to the _great_ King Oberon. I was one of his most loyal servants. That is, until he sold my contract to Nuke as a peace offering to prevent war. And it worked.” He grinned, but Sam could see a touch of pain hidden behind it. “What can I say? I’m quite the catch.”

“So… what?” Dean sounded skeptical, but listened nonetheless. “You escaped, and now Nuke’s out to get you?”

“Well you’re right about the ‘out to get’ me part. Nuke is a fucked up dude, see. I couldn’t stand working for him. The things he made me do…” He hissed between his teeth. “Anyway, I didn’t just run away. There’s two ways a contract can be transferred--mutual agreement, or by killing the current owner. So for decades I worked on perfecting an ancient poison. I killed him with it, so I own my own contract now. At a price. Servants who kill their masters are ejected from the Realms, no questions asked. And so I’ve been on Earth for the past 400 years or so. Give or take. And here I’ll say, living and dying until the end of time.”

The brothers went quiet, processing the information.

“Except that monster is after you now,” Sam said after a moment. “You killed him. How did he come back?”

“I knew he would. He’s Aeonian, just like me. The worse the death, the longer we stay out of the picture. I thought that poison would keep him down for a few more centuries. I thought… I dunno, I thought I’d have more time to prepare for this.”

“And instead you’re a DJ,” Dean scoffed, but Sam could hear the quiet rage in his mocking tone. “You know you have blood on your hands, right? All those people that died last night. Do you even care, or are they just your _human emotion_ cattle?”

Another anguished looked crossed Robbie’s face, but it was swiftly replaced with a smirk. “Hey, my pot dealer was part of the body count. So yeah, I do care.”

Dean scowled in disgust, and even if it wasn’t directed at Sam, he felt a chill run down his spine. Sam spoke up before Robbie could say something else that would make Dean do something they’d all regret.

“Okay, so you’ve killed Nuckelavee once. Do you know how to do it again?”

“Earth doesn’t have the ingredients for the poison. Besides that, it would take years to make. But I do have an idea. I was going to go at it alone, and I suggest that we keep it that way. I just need a few days to build up enough power to be human-sized again--”

“Not likely,” Dean said flatly. “Tell us what you know. It’s our job to keep people safe. You may not care, but we’re trying to keep the body count down.”

Robbie stared down at the knife laying across the table and sighed. “There’s a girl with the Sight. As in, she can see through fae glamour. Her name’s Claudia. She’s a regular at Arcadia, and she was there during the attack. I saw them wheel her out on a stretcher, but I… I think she made it. She’s needed for what I have in mind.”

Before Dean could question him further, there was a strange sound. At first, it could have been mistaken for the crash of ocean waves way off in the distance, but the noise took on a rhythmic pounding, traveling closer and closer.

“Shit!” Robbie hissed.

Sam whipped his head toward the fae, but there was no time to ask what was going on before a horse’s whinny cut through the air.

Shadows shifted, and two horse-like monster burst through the trees at the edge of the small clearing. Its hooves kicked up dirt as it tore in the direction the picnic table, its gaping mouth filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth.

* * *

The monster charged toward the table faster than Dean could comprehend, but that didn’t stop him from shooting up from the bench, grabbing his gun, and putting himself between the beast and the table.

It was horse-like, missing chunks of flesh that revealed the inner workings of its body; sinewy muscle contracted as it slowed, trotting at a restless pace around the table while Dean tried to keep up with it to protect his little brother. Ragged fins grew from each other monster’s bony legs, and the air was thick with a fishy smell. It snorted and turned its head, eyeless sockets turned side to side at Dean.

“Iron!” Robbie shouted.

Dean glanced over his shoulder, not daring to lower his gun as the horse paced in front of the table, hissing through it’s sharp teeth.

“You hear me?” Robbie insisted. “Unless you’ve got pure iron bullets in there, get this knife and put it to use! That thing is _fae_!”

“Yeah, you sure you don’t just want that knife out of your way so you can help Mister Ed here?” Dean snipped, facing forward swiftly and trying to ignore the tiny groan behind him.

“Fuck it, leave the knife if you want! But when you die, it’s your own dumbass fault!”

Dean growled under his breath. The horse’s torn-up ears flattened, and it scraped at the ground with its front hooves, baring its teeth. Hating the idea of freeing Robbie, Dean huffed and reached back, taking the hilt of the knife. He knocked Robbie off his feet in the process of yanking his hand back in front of him, but Dean didn’t have time to check of the fae had been swiped off the table completely.

The horse screamed and charged at Dean. He ducked to the side and swung the knife down, slicing through the horse’s shoulder. The beast hissed and reared back on its legs, moving out of Dean’s reach. He stumbled back as the horse came back down, front hooves aiming squarely for his chest. Before they could come down, the horse shrieked again and changed direction.

The burn from Dean’s cut with the knife was visible, along with another burn along its side from what had to be a different source. Taking advantage of the monster’s confusion, Dean lunged forward and stuck the knife straight through the thick neck. To his surprise, the iron blade put up no resistance to what should have been tough muscle.

Dean stepped back, still keeping himself between the horse and the table, but the horse stumbled to the side. Instead of hitting the ground, the monster’s body was encased in a dull, red glow. As the light faded, the body disappeared.

“Least there’s no mess to clean up,” Dean breathed, not daring to put his knife down as he glanced around for any further sign of horse monsters. Once he was satisfied, he turned around to face the two tiny people on the table--Robbie hadn’t been knocked off after all. “What happened? That thing was about to put its hooves through my chest!”

Sam, who looked beyond shaken, spoke up in a tremulous voice. “Th-The iron… The iron screw you gave me a while back.”

Robbie hadn’t moved far from the corner of the table. “He had iron on him, and he threw it at the kelpie,” he said.

“Kelpie?” Dean narrowed his eyes at the fae, tightening his hold on the iron knife. He took a step back and scanned the patchy grass. Sure enough, he found an iron screw laying in the dirt. He plucked it up between two fingers and held it out to Sam, who accepted it shakily. “You mean to tell me that wasn’t Nuckelavee?”

“No, it was a kelpie,” Robbie said, crossing his arms and visibly relaxing when Sam stowed away the iron screw. “Trust me, Nuke is way more gross than that. That was one of his minions. Classic water horse monster.”

“Classic?” Dean scoffed. “There wasn’t anything _classic_ about that! Are there more coming?”

“Relax. Nuke must still be recovering from the my counterattack, or he would have shown up himself. And if he can only send one kelpie out there, then I’m still in good shape to take him down. There’s still time.”

“You said something about a girl with… Sight?” Sam asked, having gathered himself again. Dean resisted the urge to offer some form of comfort, mind still reeling from the fact that his little brother had saved his ass--and not for the first time, either. 

“Claudia. She has the Sight, and she can summon the Sea Mither.”

Dean gave him a flat look. “And we’re supposed to know what that means.”

“The Sea Mither is one of Nuke’s ancient enemies. Back in the day when he would wreak havoc in the Realms, she would be called upon to trap him in the sea--sometimes for centuries. Thing is, the only way to bring the Sea Mither into the mortal realm is with a Seer--someone with a connection to the mortal realm and the fae. And Claudia’s our girl.”

“ _Our_?” Dean raised his eyebrows. “So what, you accept that you’re not running off to do this on your own?”

Robbie laughed. “You think I want to be alone if another kelpie shows up? Nah, I think I’d rather have a couple of iron-wielding maniacs close at hand. Now, unless you want to meet the master behind those monsters before we’re ready to take him down, I suggest we get going.”


	4. Chapter 4

Dean peered out at the hospital. Admittedly, it seemed busier than than one would expect. Still, there was no guarantee that all of the victims of the attack had been taken to the same hospital. There was no guarantee that the person they were looking for was even _alive_ , either.

“You sure she’s in there?” Dean asked, looking to his other side.

Robbie stood atop the middle of the backrest. The little guy had surprisingly good balance despite Dean being certain that he would slide off when the Impala accelerated or braked. The entire ride over, Dean had been ready to throw a hand out and catch him; he wasn’t about to lose the only person who seemed to know what the hell was going on around here.

“Anyone who was injured in the attack would be brought here,” Robbie said. “It’s the only hospital in this neighborhood of the city. I don’t know what her condition is, but I doubt she’s been released already.”

Dean leaned back and shut the car off. “Listen, I may have a fake badge, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to let me go in there for interrogation while she’s hurt.”

Robbie shrugged. “Guess you’re gonna have to be one of her family members, then.”

Dean felt movement on his shoulder as his little brother adjusted to look down at the top of the backrest.

“What do you mean by that?” Sam asked.

“I recovered from that doppelganger glamour,” Robbie explained, looking away when Dean narrowed his eyes at him. As bold as the little guy was, he still showed signs of intimidation, as if he expected for Dean to turn on him at any moment. Funny thing was, Dean was ready for Robbie to do the same. “Just go up to the front desk and show them whatever ID you have. I can make them see what I want them to see. Think you can manage that?”

Dean gave him a skeptical look and dug into his pocket to grab his wallet, mindful not to move so roughly for Sam’s sake. He pulled out one of his ID’s and held it up. “Prove it, then.”

Robbie rolled his eyes. “Have a little faith, would you?” Still, he squared his shoulders and fixed his eyes on the card. “Fine.”

A few moments of silence resulted in a whole lot of nothing.

“It looks exactly the same to me,” Dean said, giving Robbie a flat look. He was surprised to see that the fae actually looked winded, as if he really had been putting effort into whatever magic he was trying to pull.

“Guess I’m not as recovered as I thought. I need to be closer to it.” Pushing a hand back through his red faux hawk, Robbie grimaced. “Get your hand over here, I guess.”

With the same amount of reluctance that Robbie showed, Dean rested the card against the curve of his fingers and offered the palm of his hand to the fae. He climbed on and knelt in front of the ID, holding one hand out toward it, but not quite touching it. After a second, the text on the ID flickered, displaying new information.

“Woah.” Dean blinked hard and tested to see if he could make the text change back in his head through sheer force of will. The name flickered back to normal, but only because Robbie dropped his hand.

“What… It worked?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, you didn’t see it?” Dean tilted his head down with a frown before giving Robbie an inquisitive stare. 

“The glamour in Arcadia didn’t affect me either,” Sam said slowly.

Robbie looked between the brothers with a sigh. “I don’t know what’s with you, Sam, but it’s hard to _convince_ you to see things. I can do it, but it’s difficult. That’s why I got so tired when I sent those doppelganger out in Arcadia. I had to make sure you could see them, too.”

Dean wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or impressed by the fact, but they had no time to wonder about it while that Nuckelavee thing could be preparing another attack. And it seemed that Robbie had a target painted on his back, which meant that Dean and Sam could be next on the hit list too by now, considering they had taken out a kelpie.

“Let’s just get inside.” Dean hesitated halfway in moving Robbie to his pocket. “Hey. If you can only change the ID at a close distance, how are we gonna pull this off?”

Robbie pursed his lips in thought, then glanced down at Dean’s sleeve, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Before I tell you this, let me just make it perfectly clear that I don’t like it, either.”

* * *

Dean tried to keep his expression passive as he walked into the hospital lobby. He kept his arm at an angle, painfully aware of the tiny weight near his wrist. Robbie wasn’t squirming around beneath the fabric of the jacket, but he was _there_ , and it was hard to think about anything else. Even having Sam in his pocket all the time--even at that very moment--couldn’t prepare him for how weird this felt.

With his ID in hand so that the fae wouldn’t slip out of his sleeve when Dean retrieved it, he walked right up to the front desk as if he belonged there.

“Can I help you, sir?” The receptionist asked, She looked harried as it was, pulling her eyes away from a thick binder of paperwork. Dean had no doubt that at least most of the victims were in this hospital.

“Hey there. I’m here to see my sister, Claudia.” He wore a worried expression and held the ID out, feeling a little skip in his heart when the receptionist did a doubt take at it.

Frowning between the ID and the registry, she pursed her lips. “Ah, Claudia! A nurse will take you to her room right away. I was beginning to wonder if anyone would be coming to visit the poor dear.” She gave Dean a kind smile. “But she’s recovering, don’t worry.”

Dean let out a slow breath and nodded, pulling his hand away to drop it by his side as he walked away. At the last second, he felt Robbie begin to slip, squirming to grab hold of something. Dean lunged his other hand beneath his sleeve, but the little managed to cling to to the inside of the fabric in time to keep from falling out. Moving discreetly, Dean slipped his hand into his sleeve and pinched the fae’s sides with his fingers to pry him in his hand. In the same swift motion, he deposited Robbie into an unoccupied jacket pocket.

Relaxing his arms at his sides, Dean felt a tiny, but sharp, stab of pain in his abdomen. He grimaced and pressed his hand to the outside of the pocket--a silent gesture for Robbie to settle down. The fae squirmed from the inside of the pocket, but didn’t do any further damage when Dean pulled his hand away.

“Here she is, Mr. Torres.” The nurse smiled politely at him. “Let me know if either of you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

Dean walked into the room and paused to take in the sight of the young woman. She was short, with wavy brown hair and blond streaks. An IV was stuck in her arm, and the distant look on her face alone told him that she had been through a lot. She turned her head to the doorway and raised her eyebrows.

“Hey, I thought they were only letting family in,” she said, sitting up gingerly in bed. She winced and touched her ribs before settling in. “Who are you?”

Glancing back to make sure the nurse was really gone, Dean stepped in and pulled a chair up closer to the bedside. “I’m a detective,” he said, figuring he’d try to get some information about the attack from her side. “Just looking to see what happened at Arcadia, Miss Torres.”

Her eyes widened as she sat up straighter. “You… You care? I mean, you _really_ care about what happened last night?!”

He reeled back in surprise, only to remember Robbie glamour. Maybe this girl really did have the Sight, or whatever Robbie claimed she had. “Of course I do,” Dean said gently. “Please, tell me what happened so I can get to the bottom of this and stop it from happening again.”

She sat back and smoothed her hands over the blanket on her lap. “Okay, so… It all happened so _fast_ , but I think I’m not the only one who saw it. The DJ at the club--I think he saw everything too, but he… He disappeared. I tried to tell the nurse to ask around if anyone had found him, but no one cared. I… I have no idea what happened to him.”

Dean gave her a long look. “What do you know about this DJ?”

Claudia glanced down. “He--I don’t know, there’s something _different_ about him. He’s the best DJ I’ve ever seen. Arcadia’s always packed, but no one seems to talk about it outside the place. And no one ever seems to know who he is when I bring him up. I’ve never seen him anywhere else but Arcadia. There’s something almost… not human about him, and oh man, I-I probably sound crazy, don’t I?” She sighed, rubbing her temples. “Look, sir, I really wish I could help you more, but you won’t believe me.”

* * *

“Shit,” Robbie muttered. 

If Claudia kept throwing vague information about him around, there would be no telling what Dean would think. For all Robbie knew, Claudia was painting an eerie and sinister picture of him in Dean’s mind. They _needed_ to get rid of Nuckelavee no matter what, and they couldn’t be slowed down by Dean’s paranoia.

“Hey!” Robbie gripped the inner fabric of Dean’s pocket and started pulling himself up. “Let me talk to her!”

Dean jolted in surprise and ruined his climbing process. Robbie sank back down to the bottom of the pocket, cursing his small size. He glared up at the meager light that managed to peek around the corners of the pocket flap overhead.

“What was that?” Claudia asked, her voice muffled from the wall of fabric.

The hunter didn’t answer right away, but Robbie heard and felt him sigh. “Whatever you saw at the nightclub, Claudia, I’m not going to think you’re crazy if you tell me.” Light poured into the pocket, but it was immediately blocked by a massive set of fingers. “Because if I can see _this_ pain in the ass, I must be crazy too, right?”

Robbie tried to ignore the instincts begging him to get away from the reaching hand--especially knowing that it belonged to a hunter--but he forced himself to hold still while a thumb and forefinger pinched around his middle. The fingers pulled him up against the palm of his hand as Dean brought him out of the pocket. Robbie couldn’t help but cringe at the sensation, but Dean’s experience with handling Sam made the action more bearable.

Righting himself to stand atop Dean’s palm, Robbie looked across at Claudia. She leaned away, eyes ballooning as she covered her mouth.

“Robbie! Y-You’re… You…” Her voice petered out. She shook her head, but never took her eyes off him.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said with an easy smile. “Just a little shorter.”

As she pulled her hand down, the smallest of smiles touched her lips. “I’m glad you’re okay. I thought that--that _thing_ had killed you. But it just… made you like this?”

He scratched the back of his head and shuffled his feet, nearly toppling over when Dean’s hand twitched in response. Robbie threw a look over his shoulder at the hunter. “Keep steady, would you?”

“Keep still, would you?” Dean answered, mimicking his tone.

“Claudia,” Robbie said, gathering patience and turning back around. “What Nuke did to me isn’t important right now. What’s important is that you can help us stop him before he hurts or kills anyone else.” _And tortures me for the rest of eternity._

The girl leaned back on her pillow and looked down at her lap. “I knew what I saw was real! That horse-man-monster thing! And it’s not the first time, either. For as long as I can remember, I’ve… seen things. Caught glimpses out of the corner of my eye. I stopped telling people about it early on because no one ever believe me.” She fixed her eyes on Robbie, desperate for an explanation. “Why? Why can I see those things?”

Robbie opened and closed his mouth. “We’ll have time after--”

“No!” She said it so forcefully that Robbie flinched back in alarm and had to catch his balance. Claudia softened for only a moment before she glared again. “Robbie. Please.”

He wet his lips and sighed. “What’s your first memory of seeing something you shouldn’t have?”

She frowned hesitantly. “I’ll never forget it. I was on a hiking trip with my parents out on the west coast. I was eight. I wandered off and heard someone call for help. I… I found a girl near the river with blue skin, trapped in a golden net. I freed her. Then she disappeared. Her, and the golden net. From then on, I… _saw_ things.”

Dean spoke up. “So you think that’s what gave her the Sight?”

Robbie nodded. “You must have been gifted by that fairy as a reward for saving her. She was a nyx, by the sound of it.”

Claudia laughed derisively. “ _Gifted?_ Is that what you call it? This thing is a curse!” She looked almost hurt. “I always knew you were different, Robbie. And with the way you looked at me in Arcadia… You knew I had the Sight, didn’t you? Why didn’t you say anything? Why would you let _anyone_ go on thinking they were crazy?”

Guilt stabbed at him, and he had to look away. “Listen, Claudia. The Sight makes you see things you wish you never had,” he said softly. The more you delve into the things you see, the worse it gets. So it’s better not to delve.”

“You had no right to keep it from me,” she insisted.

Robbie gave her a long look. “I didn’t know how bad you had it. You seemed in control every time I saw you, so I… I thought you were doing fine. But I sincerely wish that you wouldn’t need to be part of this plant to take Nuckelavee out. It’ll be dangerous, but we _need_ you.There’s a being that needs to be summoned: the Sea Mither. She can contain Nuke in the ocean for a few centuries, since we don’t have the means to kill him. People with the Sight have the ability to get the Sea Mither’s attention.”

Claudia clutched at the blanket, eyes rife with apprehension as she mulled it over. “And once we do this, you’ll tell me about the Sight? You’ll… help me figure it out?”

He sighed, prepared to turn her down. Those with the Sight were known to go crazy if they saw too much. But there were also those who went crazy from seeing too little and not understanding it. He nodded reluctantly. “I’ll help you however I can. I promise.”

She sat up straighter. “Then let’s get out of here.”


	5. Chapter 5

Since the Sea Mither would only answer at dusk or dawn, Robbie insisted that Claudia go home, clean up, grab a change of clothes, and recuperate before it was time to head to the beach for the summoning.

Dean took the Impala to a parking lot directly across from the apartment building, keeping a watchful eye on the place while Sam took Claudia’s brief absence to be out of Dean’s pocket and stretch his legs. He opted to stand on the backrest of the seat with Robbie, who was beginning to look more and more on edge with what they were going to do.

“Are you nervous about getting rid of him?” Sam asked, taking a seat less than a foot away from Dean.

Robbie laughed and stopped pacing. “Of course I am. I know the Sea Mither can trap him, but it’s a matter of dusk getting here before Nuke’s recovered enough to come after me.” He rolled his shoulders as if trying to shrug off the tension. “All of this is gonna end one of two ways: his imprisonment or mine.”

Sam frowned. “Imprisonment? You mean he won’t kill you?”

“Kill me? Hell, that’d be a mercy! If he has his way, I’m never going to die again.” A tight smile tugged at his lips. “Listen, I know I’ve been an asshole, but Nuke’s trying to destroy everything I care about. So I’m trying not to care about anything.”

Dean’s eyes flickered in their direction, so Sam knew he was listening despite his silence.

“So those people at Arcadia,” Sam said slowly.

Grief flickered in the fae’s eyes before he turned away to hide it. “Most of them were weekend regulars,” Robbie muttered. “It wasn’t a coincidence that Nuke showed up when the place was packed. He made sure he took as many people out as he could, and that I saw everything before he tried to get to me. What he didn’t expect was for me to counter strong enough to push him out of the picture for a while.” 

“What about what Claudia said about people not knowing or remembering about you outside of Arcadia?”

“That’s not my fault. It’s a fae thing. When we’re among humans, they tend to forget about us, like a dream, if they don’t know what we really are. Having the Sight doesn’t just mean seeing fae. It also means Claudia _remembers_ it all, even when she doesn’t know what she’s looking at.”

Sam nodded hesitantly, still trying to wrap his head around the whole fae thing.

“Speaking of Claudia,” Robbie added, suddenly turning back around to look at Sam, “why are you hiding from her? You don’t need to worry about her doing anything to you. I mean, she handled seeing me pretty well, even though she has every right to be mad at me for not telling her about her Sight sooner. If anything, it’s _better_ that she knows you’re around.”

Dean tensed up beside Sam, but he still said nothing--a silent assurance that he wasn’t going to talk over Sam.

“Nice or not, humans can be dangerous to me,” Sam said plainly. “You said yourself that you always come back to life at _this_ size. I doubt you go around talking to humans when you’re like this.”

Robbie grinned. “You’d be surprised. But it’s funny how you’re so high-strung about being in danger while you’re hanging around with the most dangerous sort of person for your kind.” He glanced at Dean, his golden eyes narrowing. “Really counterproductive, actually.”

“Hey,” Dean grumbled, a scowl on his face, though he didn’t look away from the apartment building. “The only one around here who’s gonna be in danger is you, if you keep that up.”

Robbie scoffed, taking a few steps closer with his hands shoved deep in his hoodie pockets. “Hunters are always like that, aren’t they? Just throwing threats and getting violent when they don’t wanna face the truth.”

Dean raised his eyebrows in realization and finally look at the backrest of the seat. “Hang on. You’ve met hunters before, haven’t you?”

A hardened look took hold of Robbie’s face as his shoulders stiffened. “ _Meet_ isn’t the right word. _Killed by_? That’s more like it. More than once in the past century. In fact, the last time I died was in ‘78 when a hunter like you put an iron knife through my gut, right around here-ish.” He gestured at himself vaguely. “Next thing I knew, I came back to life _years_ later and realized I had missed the entire speed metal era.” He smirked humorlessly at his joke, something feral stirring in his eyes. “Now that’s just unforgivable.”

Silence filled the car. Robbie sat down on the backrest, legs crossed as he glared through the windshield. Sam hadn’t blamed Robbie for being wary of Dean--especially with the way he had been captured. But now Sam felt a twinge of guilt for not realizing just how deeply the fear ran.

“You can trust Dean,” Sam assured. Even with the look Robbie threw at him, he pressed on. “I know there’s hunters out there who’ll kill anything that isn’t human, but that’s not Dean. Not all hunters are like that. Both you and Nuckelavee are fae. He’s evil, but you don’t seem evil.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m _not_ evil,” Robbie said flatly. 

“My point is, maybe you should lay off on thinking that Dean has it out for you just because he’s a hunter.”

Robbie ran a hand down his face, but Sam was pleased to see a measure of consideration in his expression. “Right, wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,” he said with far less of an edge to his tone. “I can’t figure you out, Sam. I mean, I need stronger glamour in order to fool you, and you’re hanging out with a hunter. I’m the last person that should tell anyone how live their life, but I just can’t figure you out. You’re not like the others of your size, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe that’s because I used to be human,” Sam said.

Robbie jolted as if he had been electrocuted, for once looking genuinely and unsarcastically surprised. He snapped his fingers. “ _That’s_ what it is! You’ve got some kind of curse on you, huh? I knew something was off about this.”

“Hmph.” Dean turned away from the window again and focused on the pair of tiny people. “Say, Robbie… Since you can change your size, do you think you could…” He trailed off and glanced at Sam with a spark of fierce hope igniting in his eyes.

Sam stomach knotted up. He hadn’t thought about the possibility either until Dean brought it up.

Robbie frowned. “Change Sam back to human size,” he finished for Dean. He shrugged. “Sure, why not.” 

He said it so casually that Sam could only wonder how the fae was even in the same conversation. Surely he couldn’t grasp the enormity of what he was saying. 

Sam looked at Dean with wide eyes. “I-I’m… I don’t--” He cut himself off, unsure how to tell Dean that he didn’t _want_ to change, without starting an argument right there.

“But hey,” Robbie put in. “Even if I could, I’m nowhere near powerful enough to pull something like that off. I don’t even know what the hell the curse is--only the result of it. Talk to me once Nuke’s at the bottom of the Atlantic.”

_Great. Robbie’s finally giving Dean a chance, and_ this _has to be their first real agreement._

Before Sam could put up further protest on the matter, he caught sight of Claudia heading across the street. “Hey, Dean…”

“Right.” Dean held out his hand for Sam to climb on, moving him up to the lip of his front jacket pocket.

“Really, I think Claudia’s safe enough to know about you,” Robbie tried.

“That’s not your call,” Dean said sternly. “It’s Sam’s.”

Sam dropped down to the bottom of the pocket, prepared when the passenger-side door opened and slammed shut.

“Sorry I took so long,” Claudia said. “I’m… I just. I guess I needed a little time to process all of this. But I think I’m ready. All I have to do is stand at the shore and read this?”

Sam heard a crinkle of paper. Before leaving the hospital, Robbie had instructed Claudia on how the summoning worked and the chant that she would need to complete to get the Sea Mither’s attention.

Sam felt Dean prepare to speak, but Robbie beat him to the punch.

“It’d be a lot for anyone to take in,” he said. “You’re doing great, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Thanks,” she said with a sigh. “I just want to get it over with.”

“We’ll get through it soon,” Robbie assured. “Hey. Just curious, but what would you have done if you hadn’t gotten hurt in the attack. Like… What if you came over to the stage and looked for me, and found me like this?”

Sam rolled his eyes and dragged a hand down his face, certain that Robbie was trying to prove a point.

Claudia hummed in thought. “I mean, I would have been a little freak out, I’ll be honest with you But seeing a skinless horse-man thing charge across a nightclub kinda takes the _surprise_ out of a person. I would have helped you, obviously.”

“Thanks, just making sure.”

Sam could hear the smugness rolling off Robbie’s tone, but thankfully, the fae respected Sam’s wishes and didn’t reveal his presence.


	6. Chapter 6

Claudia clutched the sheet of paper tightly as she walked down the shore with Dean beside her. Robbie was perched on Dean’s shoulder, but she couldn’t help but notice that neither of them seemed particularly happy about the arrangement. She would have offered to hold Robbie, but she felt a nervous flutter in her heart at the thought of the responsibility of _literally_ holding someone’s life in her hands. 

She was on edge about the summoning enough as it was.

“So, I just have to stand in front of the shoreline and chant this?” Claudia asked, a touch of skepticism in her tone despite everything she had seen. This _Sea Mither_ was supposed to come from some other realm, according to Robbie. She found it hard to believe that a being like that would show up just because someone said a few words in front of some waves.

“That’s right,” Robbie said, clearly raising his voice to be heard over the ocean. “We should give it a few minutes before starting. The timing has to be just right, or we’ll have to wait until dawn.”

“This better work,” Dean grumbled. “We don’t exactly have a plan B here besides trying to take the bastard down with iron.”

A screech echoed along the shoreline. Claudia gasped and whipped around. Dean gave her a strange look, but she knew she wasn’t hearing things when she saw Robbie pale and twist around to follow Claudia’s gaze. The wind roared--Dean noticed _that_ and brought his hand up to keep the fae on his shoulder from sliding off.

The monster from Arcadia wasn’t completely there. Its image was far down the shore, shifting like a shadow and see-through like a ghost. It roared, pacing around as if trying to break free of whatever was keeping it from being corporeal. 

“What?” Dean huffed, frustratedly trying to lay eyes on what was impossible for him to see. “What is it?”

“It’s Nuke!” Robbie shouted over the wind. “The ward I put to keep him away is still in effect, but if he’s this close, then we don’t have much time! Claudia, you have to go-- _now!_! Get a little farther down there and start chanting.”

The waves rolled closer and pulled back higher. Claudia started to obey Robbie’s urgency, but she froze up when she saw a strange form taking shape in the water, rising up with horse-like whinnies and kicking front legs.

“Claudia, go!” Robbie insited. “Dean’ll keep them away from you!”

Claudia shuffled back a few uncertain steps, then turned tail and ran. She heard Robbie shout something to Dean--a warning. She looked over his shoulder in time to see Dean sidestep a dripping, charging horse monster and lose his footing when it managed to bump against him. He fell with one hand cupped around Robbie, the other cupped around his front jacket pocket instead of trying to break his fall.

“Dean!” Claudia slowed to a stop, ready to go back and help him, but another gust ravaged down the shoreline, sending the paper flying from her grip. It spiral toward Dean, skittering on the sand.

Cursing under her breath, she sprinted after it.

Robbie’s voice rose up again, and the monster erupted into water and fell away as Dean started to get up. As she searched the ground for the paper, she noticed something small move by Dean’s shoulder, but it wasn’t Robbie, who was on the sand and looking delirious by whatever he had done to make the monster go away.

Another beast reared up in the waves, but Claudia tore her eyes away from it long enough to spot the paper laying a few feet away from Dean, the wind threatening to send it flying again.

“G-Get up!” Robbie urged Dean. “There’s another coming! I can’t do that again--grab some iron!”

Dean finally got to his knees, brushing the front pocket of his jacket. His eyes widened and scanned the ground. “Wait--Sammy!”

There was the small figure again. It ran toward the lost paper and stopped it before it could skitter further away. Claudia faltered in her step before starting towards it again, shocked to find that the tiny person was dragging the paper in her direction.

“Dean, _now_!” Robbie shouted.

Dean looked away from the other tiny person in the sand and caught Claudia’s gaze to give her a meaningful look that she didn’t understand. He whipped out a gun and scooped Robbie up, listening to his directions on where to point as the horse monster finally burst free from the waves. Nuckelavee’s figure rippled in the distance, drawing closer than before. Her ribs hurt at the mere thought of those claws digging into her flesh.

Redirecting her attention to the paper and the tiny figure, she met him halfway and dropped to a hesitant crouch, confirming that the man was a tiny person like Robbie. He seemed far more cautious than the fairy DJ, slowing to a rigid stop when she reached for the paper.

“Thank you,” she murmured, taking the sheet swiftly but gently to keep from frightening him further. “You’re… not a fairy.” It wasn’t a question. He lacked something in her eyes that would have revealed any sort of fae presence.

She didn’t have time to ponder what exactly he was; a gunshot rang out, and the monster screeched in agony.

The tiny man clapped his hands over his ears and cringed, twisting to look over at Dean and Robbie as the monster fell, only to be replaced by another. Claudia couldn’t possibly leave the small person there in the middle of a battlefield, but she couldn’t wait around any longer either. The sun was almost down.

“Can you come with me,” she said breathlessly, laying a hand out for him to climb on. She pulled back an inch when he jolted back in alarm, but she moved it again forward, slower. “I… I don’t know what’s going to happen when I summon this Sea Mither thing. Please. I don’t know who you are, but I don’t want to be alone.”

The man’s face went from cautious to determined, and although he was still hesitant, he stepped forward and climbed onto her hand. 

“I’m Sam,” he said as she lifted her hand, worrying every second that she was doing it wrong. He seemed a little more confident. “Get farther away from the monsters. Dean can keep them away, but you need to hurry.”

She nodded, silencing her internal curiosities about him. Cupping him by her shoulder, she took a firm grip on the paper and moved farther down the shore, her walk swift but with a measure of care so that she wouldn’t jostle Sam.

Finally, she came to a stop in front of the waves and wasted no more time. Holding the paper in front of her with one hand, she started to chant.

* * *

“That’s another one down,” Robbie said, chest heaving. He knew Dean was tiring as well, but it took a lot of work to stay clinging to the hutner’s collar while he fought off invisible kelpies.

“I need to make sure Sam’s okay,” Dean growled, lowering his gun.

“Hey!” Robbie tightened his hold on the fabric of the jacket once more and pulled, as if to steer Dean away from the shore. Claudia’s voice rose over the waves and the wind as she chanted, probably unaware of just how powerful the words were. “She’s got him. Right now, that’s as safe as he’s going to get. Look out!”

Dean whirled around, inadvertently making Robbie lose his footing for the dozenth time. “What?”

“Shit. Nuke’s finally making his move now that he’s tired you out with the kelpies.”

A screech cut through the air, and Nuke broke the veil that had been holding him back, claws out and ready to gut anything that got in his way. By then, he had to know what they were up to with the Sea Mither. Which mean that keeping Dean between Nuke and Claudia was more important than ever.

“Just tell me where to hit,” Dean said, tense in his shoulders and neck.

“It won’t be that easy,” Robbie said grimly, feeling his heart thud hard in his chest. “Nuke’s bigger than the kelpies and a hell of a lot smarter. We’re just going to have to keep him away from the shore. Move to your right and don’t stop until I say so. Go!”

Robbie’s insides twisted as Nuckelavee roared again, closing in faster than Dean could get away. All it would take was one swipe, and the hunter would be down, leaving Claudia wide open for the taking.

“Run, Dean!” Robbie yelled. “Faster!”

Just when the beast was a mere dozen feet away, a light exploded across the beach.

“Yes,” Robbie hissed through his teeth, tearing his eyes away from Nuckelavee to peer at the blinding glow from the waves.

The Sea Mither had arrived, and her presence alone made something wash over Robbie that he didn’t expect. Nuckelavee halted in the sand and roared in pain, staggering on his four sinewy horse legs. The Sea Mither’s proximity was enough to drain him--and to Robbie’s delight--returned some of what he had stolen.

“Robbie, what are you--” Dean gasped and threw a hand out to catch Robbie when he vaulted off the hunter’s shoulder with reckless abandon. But in the blink of an eye, there was no need to catch him.

Robbie landed at a crouch in the sand, lifting his hand and rolling his shoulders. When he stood up, he only half a head shorter than Dean. The hunter gaped at him.

“Like what you see?” Robbie grinned and waggled his eyebrows at him.

Dean blinked and made a noise of disbelief before facing forward again. His face paled, which could only mean that he finally laid eyes on Nuckelavee. The beast was weakened enough to shatter his glamour shield against human eyes.

Nuke was recovering quickly, gaining his senses back.

Robbie sidestepped to grab a scrappy branch from the sand at random. In his hand, it transformed into a blade. Damn, it felt good to have his regular magic back again. “Get those iron bullets ready,” he told Dean, taking a fighting stance. “The weaker he is when he’s dragged into the sea, the longer he’ll be trapped there.”

“Robbie!” A voice came from down the shore. The shimmering form of the Sea Mither stood there, proud and calm despite the chaos. But it wasn’t her who had spoken. Claudia waved one hand at him. “She… She says she needs a medium to have power here on Earth.’

“The hell does that mean?” Dean snapped, looking between Nuckelavee and Robbie. “You didn’t say anything about that!”

“I… I didn’t know,” he said. He gave Claudia a meaningful look, one that she apparently understood. She whirled back around to the Sea Mither. “She’s going to do it,” Robbie said, astonished. “Brave kid.”

“You said we just needed the chant,” Dean said. “What does it mean--what’s she gonna do?”

Before Robbie could answer, a deafening roar split through the air again. Nuckelavee forced himself back to his hooves, his horse head hissing through its razor-sharp teeth. “Robin Goodfellow,” the humanoid part snarled in a guttural tone. “We have much left to do.”

Faster than what should have been possible for his size, Nuke charged at Dean first. The hunter held his ground with surprising valor, gun at the ready. He fired and hit his mark, but that didn’t stop Nuke from lifting one bloodied, clawed hand. Dean tensed, ready to jump out of the way.

He wouldn’t be quick enough, and he wouldn’t be the first to underestimate how far Nuckelavee’s arms could reach.

Robbie bounded toward Dean and tackled him out of the way. His own scream rang in his ears as white-hot agony tore across his back.


	7. Chapter 7

White-knuckling the fabric on Claudia’s shoulder, Sam glanced back with wide eyes as Robbie fell to the ground and writhed in the sand. Nuckelavee wheeled around, weakened by the bullet wounds Dean had inflicted.

“A-Are you sure she’ll survive this?” Sam asked impatiently, turning back around to face the Sea Mither.

With all the power she radiated, she was hard to look at. Despite that, there was a sort of distance to her even though she stood right in front of them--as if she really _was_ coming from another plane of existence. Thick threads of blue and green hair spilled over her shoulders, and her eyes never seemed to settle on a color: blues and grays and greens, like she held entire oceans in her irises. 

Sam couldn’t help but tense up when those eyes fixed on him. The Sea Mither was even taller than Dean, and her expression was unreadable.

“I cannot say,” the Sea Mither answered, her voice rolling like the waves behind her. “What I can assure is that I will do everything in my power to ensure that the Seer survives. It would be a waste to lose one so young.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Claudia insisted. The hand that guarded Sam from the wind shook. “Please! Robbie’s hurt--”

“Very well, child,” the Sea Mither said, cutting her off once Claudia consented. “Prepare yourself.”

Claudia breathed out sharply. “I-I-I don’t know how--”

The hand she held up by Sam dropped away suddenly, and she whirled to the side. Sam was almost thrown from his perch, but he tightened his grip at the last second, digging his boots in.

“You can do it, Claudia,” Sam murmured breathlessly, peeking back as Dean--out of bullets--took a swipe at Nuckelavee with his iron knife and sent the monster rearing back warily. “Come on, _come on_.”

Claudia threw her palm out toward the waves, the breath catching in her throat as if she was struggling for air. Then she pulled her hand up, and the waves changed their natural course. For a horrifying moment, Sam thought for sure that more kelpies were forming in the waves.

The tide danced across the sand much farther than it should have been able to reach. It pulled back into the mass of the ocean, gathering stronger before it burst out onto the sand again. This time, it didn’t stop. Tendrils of water shot toward the battlefield like whips. An ear-splitting screech cut through the air like a blade.

Meanwhile, the Sea Mither chanted in a language that Sam couldn’t place, but he recognized some of the words from the summoning spell Claudia had used. The water crashed over Nuckelavee, narrowly missing Dean, who was dragging Robbie’s feeble form a safer distance away.

Sam balked at the sight of the monster, unable to believe it despite everything. The water sent Nuckelavee careening to the side, the horse head and the human torso thrashing with panic. The beast dug his long claws into the sand, trying to prevent the inevitable. The water did not relent. It wrapped around the monster in swirling white waves and dragged him closer and closer to the shore until the ocean claimed him entirely.

In a matter of moments, Nuckelavee was gone, and the tide returned to the normal.

Sam gasped as Claudia sank down suddenly. She managed to stay on her knees, shoulders rising and falling with each rattling breath.

“It is done,” the Sea Mither said.

Sam looked up at her, swallowing intimidation. “He won’t come back?”

The Sea Mither’s expression didn’t change. “He has been returned to the Realms. Back to the sea, where he was created. I will keep him at bay for as long as I can manage. He was a destructive force in the Realms as well as on Earth when he was free. Do not expect to see him within the next several centuries.”

“That’ll work,” Sam said with a shaky breath.

* * *

“Claudia? Sam?” Dean was torn between staying where he was beside Robbie or running to check on the others. The latter almost won out, until he saw Claudia get to her feet shakily, one hand cupped to her shoulder as she waved with the other.

“We’re… We’re fine,” Claudia called as she limped over. She looked like she had trouble focusing until she fixed her eyes on Robbie. Letting out a soft sound of sympathy, she rushed over and sank down opposite Dean, wincing and touching her injured ribs before she settled. “Is… Is he…?”

“Still breathing,” Robbie said with a weak chuckle. A thick streak of red marred the sand where Dean had dragged him to get out of Nuckelavee’s way. The fae smirked at Claudia. “You might wanna return Dean’s brother before he snaps your neck.”

Dean gave Robbie a flat look, but was relieved nonetheless when Claudia gently offered Sam a lift from her shoulder and bridged him over to Dean’s waiting hand.

“You okay?” Dean asked, cupping his other hand near Sam and touching his shoulder carefully to see if anything was wrong.

Sam waved off his fingers. “I’m fine, Dean. But what about…” Sam trailed off and looked over the side of Dean’s hand at Robbie.

Dean hesitated, looking the fae up and down. “Think you’re gonna make it?”

Robbie snorted. “Sure, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Really?” Sam asked, eyebrows raised in astonishment.

“Nah, it’s, uh--it’s _worse_ than it looks. You know how rubbing salt in a would make it hurt like hell? Same principle with sand.” He smiled toothily and rested his head back, shutting his eyes. “No chance in hell I’m getting through this one,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Wh-what?” Claudia took his shoulder as if she meant to help him sit up. “There’s gotta be something! Come on, you’re _magic_! Can’t we at least get you to the hospital?”

“Hey, hey, no,” Robbie said, opening his eyes but stubbornly staying where he was. He sighed in pain, and Dean could have sworn he saw the fae’s form flicker. Robbie stared up at the darkened sky. “Let’s be honest. There’s worse way to go. But I’m not gonna lie, dying never gets any easier when it comes down to it.”

“You’ve died?” Claudia asked softly, abandoning her attempts to make him get up.

He chuckled. “Yeah. Long, _long_ story,” he said with a wink. “If I were you, I’d steer clear from learning more about fae than you need to know. And all you need to know is that there’s only trouble at the end of the road when it comes to us.”

Claudia let out a breathy laugh that was almost a sob. “I think I see what you mean.”

“Robbie,” Sam said, his voice much clearer now that the wind had died down. He only had to compete with the sound of the calm waves. “We couldn’t have done this without you. Thanks for… For trusting us.”

“He’s right,” Dean confirmed, trying to keep his hand a steady platform for his brother. “I mean, you did mess with my head and make it harder, but I doubt we would have found out about the Sea Mither and Seers before more people got killed.”

Robbie turned his head toward him. “I’m touched. You’re not so bad for a hunter, I guess. If you’re ever in need of a DJ, I’ll think about giving you a discount. Just give me a few years to rematerialize and get back to you, ya’know?”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dean murmured.

“Hey, Robbie,” Claudia said uncertainly, curiosity briefly masking her sorrow. “Did I hear Nuckelavee call you… Robin Goodfellow?”

Robbie snorted. “Sure did.”

She laughed like she wasn’t sure she was supposed to laugh. “He didn’t mean… _the_ Robin Goodfellow, right? Like from the Shakespeare play?”

“William did like to embellish the stories I told him,” he said with a sigh, though a smirk still wavered at the corner of his lips. “I’ve gone by many names. Let’s just leave it at that.”

Claudia looked like she wanted to ask more, but she respected his wishes.

She smoothed her hand through Robbie’s hair, quiet tears rolling down her cheeks. Suddenly, her hand passed through him. She yanked it back in alarm, and before anyone could utter a word, Robbie let out a rattling breath and was gone--faded away like the kelpies. Even the blood on the sand disappeared, as if it had never been there.

After moving Sam to his shoulder, Dean helped Claudia to her feet. She rubbed her eyes and looked down, a distant expression of terror on her face that Dean had seen plenty of times when dealing with victims, once they accepted that there were horrid things out in the world.

The Sea Mither stood a few feet away, observing them in calm silence. Dean frowned and kept his distance, prepared to pull Claudia back when she took a few steps toward the strange fae.

“You… Could you have helped him?” Claudia asked, her voice thick but demanding.

“Perhaps,” the Sea Mither said calmly. “But I have no obligation to assist blood traitors.”

Claudia stammered for a second before finding her words. “You mean because Robbie killed Nuckelavee all those centuries ago? B-but you said that Nuckelavee was a terror to your world too!”

“That does not change that he is a servant who killed his master.” Something cold passed through the Sea Mither’s eyes. “You have much to learn about the fae, child.”

With that, she was gone in a spray a mist.

“I don’t think so,” Claudia muttered, and Dean hoped that meant she would take Robbie’s advice to heart--about now delving into the world of fae.

“You gonna be okay?” Dean asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She bit her lip and nodded slowly. “I think Robbie was right about staying out of all this fae stuff. I’m going back to not looking, even when I know something’s there. It’s worked for me before.”

Dean gave her an approving look and dropped his hand away, still struggling to grasp that Robbie had disappeared. He couldn’t imagine what was going through Claudia’s head after witnessing such frightening events “Do you need a lift?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I think I need to take a walk.” She laughed softly and rubbed her eyes again. “A _long_ walk. But thanks.” She lifted her gaze, shifting between Dean and his shoulder. “Thank you both for keeping that thing away from me.”

“We couldn’t have gotten rid of it without your summoning,” Sam pointed out. “You really saved the day, Claudia.”

She smiled warmly, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. With one last look at the sand where Robbie had been lying just minute prior, she murmured a goodbye and trudged toward the boardwalk in the distance.

Sam and Dean watched her for a time before heading in the other direction.

“Good work out there, pint-size,” Dean said, trying to keep his tone light despite everything. “If you hadn’t stopped that paper from flying off, we woulda been screwed.”

Sam sighed. “Hopefully the next case is a little more… normal.”

Dean snorted. “ _Normal_?”

He felt a tiny punch on his neck. “You know what I mean. A little less fae demons, a little more ghosts that are actually from _our_ world.”

Decided to let Sam off the hook as far as teasing went for the time-being, Dean set his eyes away from the rolling waves. “Yeah, I hear ya.”


End file.
